Norwood Hills Country Club (West)

Overview: The West Course at Norwood Hills is a Wayne Stiles design in St. Louis that uses rolling ground, elevation changes and carefully sited trees to create a demanding Golden Age parkland test. The course stretches just beyond 7,000 yards and is defined by contoured greens as much as by its fairways. High and sloping putting surfaces make approach placement important, while the natural rises and hollows give the routing a varied rhythm. It is the larger and more celebrated of Norwood’s two 18-hole courses.

History: Norwood Hills began in 1922 as North Hills Country Club, with Wayne Stiles chosen to plan an ambitious golf property. The West Course opened that year and quickly became a major venue in St. Louis. Its tournament history includes the 1948 PGA Championship, the 2001 U.S. Senior Amateur and the 2018 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur. More recently, the course became a host venue for the Ascension Charity Golf Classic on the PGA Tour Champions, extending a competition tradition that has lasted for a century.

Did You Know? Wayne Stiles trained as a landscape architect, and his eye for tree selection and placement is central to Norwood’s character. The West Course’s greens are perched on high points around the property, creating a subtle but serious putting hazard: a shot that misses the correct section can turn a routine approach into a difficult two-putt. That green-setting idea links Norwood to Stiles’s broader New England design vocabulary.